Joanna Hershon

Joanna Hershon's latest novel is A Dual Inheritance.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading.  Hershon's reply:

I’m finally reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which—because it’s written by Junot Diaz—is just cracking with energy and humor and bravura from page one. I’m looking forward to getting into the history of the Dominican Republic, getting lost in an unfamiliar world. But I keep cheating on this novel with a book of short stories, Glory Goes and Gets Some by Emily Carter, which I bought at WORD bookstore in Greenpoint, during an event for Emily Books. Emily Carter’s stories are poetic, funny, sharp, sad and sometimes monotonous (which seems about right, as they’re all tales of addicts or recovering addicts).

I also keep getting distracted by issues of The New Yorker. I’m half way through a story by Tessa Hadley, which is right where I want to be because when I’m reading a story by Tessa Hadley I never want it to end.

Also, on my bedside table is My Scarlet Ways, a book of poetry by my friend Tanya Larkin. We met as teenagers and would go to an Italian restaurant and write together in our journals, reading passages to each other aloud. It’s thrilling to see that my adolescent notion of her brilliance was, in fact, correct.

Visit Joanna Hershon's website.

Hershon is also the author of Swimming, The Outside of August, and The German Bride. Her writing has appeared in One Story, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Post Road, the literary anthology Brooklyn Was Mine, and was shortlisted for the 2007 O. Henry Prize Stories.

The Page 69 Test: The German Bride.

My Book, The Movie: The German Bride.

--Marshal Zeringue